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Real Food! (What is that smell?)

8/28/2007

First of all, I just want to say that for all of you that attended the clinic yesterday (8/27) it was great to meet many of you, and your questions really rocked! I thought it was the best session I had attended to date, and all of you seemed to have a very healthy approach in the questions you asked and the concerns you raised. Good luck to all of you.

Three weeks earlier than I expected, I was given the green light to eat real food (phase 3). I had some baked salmon last night and it was incredible beyond words. I ate a lot more than I thought I could, but ate really, really slowly.

Then, in an effort to push my luck that I creatively called "an experiment" I tried to eat a few cookies. No problems with dumping (yeah!), and to my astonishment my blood sugar was 97 this morning. Will the wonders never cease?

But then I stumbled across one of those wonders I could do without: The morning BM. I was warned about this by many post-op patients, but I wasn't warned enough about it. Without dwelling on this too much, let me just say that my family would have easily welcomed an animal that had died sometime last year and had been sitting in the sun all summer to help cover up the smell. Really, how can anything smell that bad and that powerful without any warning at all? I think we'll just ixnay on the ishfay for a while.

Tonight I'm going to try chicken. If there is any "fowl" odor (I pun, deal with it) anywhere near the salmon's output, heaven help me. I heard that some patients actually end up with marital problems following the surgery, and I now see why. I'd have kicked myself out of the house this morning given the chance.

On the bright side of things, if my house ever contemplated developing a rat infestation, I think this morning would have killed the morale of even the strongest rat. And being outnumbered in the gender pool 3 to 1 (two daughters, a wife) I now have accomplished what I could not do before now: securing my own private bathroom in the morning.

Back to serious matters. I've now crossed the 40 pound threshold, with two days before my 5 week anniversary. I wrote my first patient letter yesterday, which was a cool thing to do.

I'm going to be in concert this weekend in York, SC with the band (the NowThings). We're doing a benefit concert, although my lead guitarist hasn't yet told me what we're benefitting. But I always look forward to playing. I'll be playing at the Church this weekend as well, which has just recently started broadcasting our service in the local Rock Hill, SC television station. TV always adds 10 pounds, so I'll look like I've just lost 30 pounds to most people. I think I can live with that.

Thanks for reading again. Keep up the fight, and let me know if there's anything I can do for you. In exchange, perhaps you can tell me the best way to cover up really bad odors.